Oscars Producer Talks Will Smith’s Chris Rock Slap: “I Thought It Was A Bit, Like Everybody Else”
01.04.2022 - 14:31
/ deadline.com
Oscars producer Will Packer said he didn’t realize presenter Chris Rock had been physically struck by Will Smith until he heard it straight from the comedian’s mouth.
“I thought it was a bit, like everybody else,” Packer told Good Morning America in his first public comments since Sunday night’s shocker. Smith, shortly before winning the Oscar for Best Actor, slapped Rock over a joke he made about the shaved head of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. She has publicly talked of her struggle with alopecia, a condition which causes hair loss.
Packer told correspondent T.J. Smith that he was watching from just offstage as Rock launched into his mini-set before handing out the Best Documentary prize. “He didn’t tell one planned joke,” Packer said. “I thought this was something that Chris and Will were doing on their own. I thought it was a bit. … We hadn’t practiced it.”
Once it started to become clear what was unfolding, Packer said, “My heart dropped. I remember thinking, ‘Oh no. Not like this.’ … I’ve never felt as immediately devastated as I did in that moment.”
After Rock came offstage, Packer said he asked him, “Did he really hit you? And he looks at me and goes, ‘Yeah. I just got took a punch from Muhammad Ali. He was right away in joke mode, but you could tell that he was in complete shock.”
The Academy has taken heat for allowing Smith to not only remain in the theater, but to go onstage and give a rambling, teary acceptance speech. Packer insisted that the decision not to have Smith escorted out of the Dolby Theater was made by Rock. The comedian strongly expressed a preference that Will Smith not be arrested by police, according to Packer.
“They were about to physically remove Will Smith,” he said. “I wasn’t part of those